


See You Next Week

by Julian_Albert



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Grief, M/M, Rarepair, Recovery, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 16:37:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12708804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Julian_Albert/pseuds/Julian_Albert
Summary: George is struggling to cope with the death of his twin, and Harry just wants to get through to him. He doesn't realize quite how torn up he is, himself, though, and through their attempts to heal each other they discover they are very much in love.





	See You Next Week

**Author's Note:**

  * For [agentmoppet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentmoppet/gifts).



> I wrote this for agentmoppet on tumblr literally over a year ago and I never posted it, but better late than never? If you get a chance, read her stories, because thhey are 100% the best-written pieces I've ever found, and she has such a way of wording things and I promise you won't regret it. As a side note, there are some things I would change in this story if I had the time between school work, but for now this is as good as it gets lol. A lot of this is probably OOC especially on Georges part, but since I've lost my twin sister I find I've probably projected a lot of how I cope with that onto him, so some of the things in this are sort of personal, if that makes sense? I didn't really anticipate how difficult it would be to touch on a subject like that, but it was something I really wanted ot do and I'm glad I did.

 

Harry can remember when the Weazleys Wizard Wheezes storefront drew eyes from every passerby that came down Diagon Alley. Now that the war is six months over and done, he almost can't recognize it. In the evening sunlight that slants across the alley he can see how much the paint has faded, white as bone in places. It tightens a knot in his chest that feels close to permanent these days, and he tries to find something that doesn't make his chest clench so tightly when he looks at whats left of the shop, but even the plastic smile of the great grinning face that hangs over the shop front seems to be suffering, empty glass eyes looking down an equally empty street. The front door is still scarred with the scorch marks of a wayward curse that was thrown early in the war, and Harry puts his hand against it automatically, tracing the line it makes to the handle with his index finger. When he retracts it, he can feel the faint prickling of residual magic sinking back into place. Strong curses did that sometimes, he had learned in auror training; there were aftereffects to curses that weren't always visible; remnants of the caster that were sometimes left behind. He's trained to feel for it, and it leaves his fingers buzzing and slightly cold.

He pushes the door open, and isn't surprised as what he sees. The store is dimly lit, and he unholsters his wand as he closes the door behind him, muttering a spell to quiet the tinkling of the bell overhead. He almost thinks the shop is completely empty, but there is a boy wandering through the aisles with unbrushed curls and acne spots on his chin. His movements are stilted and cautious, and Harry can tell he's wondering if he should be there. He makes a half turn automatically when the boy slips into an aisle and dissapears from view, and adjusts a stack of boxes that is tilting precariously on top of a low shelf.

He stirs so much dust his eyes water, and he has to hold his breath all the way to the staircase beside the checkout counter. He knows George is upstairs, and makes his way up with a sigh, something like regret in his chest. They don't have a door to the flat; Fred accidentally blasted it off the hinges during an overzealous experiment, and they were never bothered to replace it. A tartan curtain hangs crookedly in its absence, and Harry ducks beneath it and into the open hallway. If he steps a bit further he'd be in the kitchen, but a cursory glance tells him George isn't in there, and he moves instead down the hallway into the back of the flat, to where a light is spilling into the hall from beyond an open door. Ah, so he's experimenting agian.

He was always experimenting when Harry came, and he rarely saw him out of the grim little room besides when he was in the kitchen or asleep in his bedroom. Harry flicks his wand, and the candles that line the hall spark slowly to life. His shadow is pushed into the room, long and angular, and falls over George and his work as he bends over his desk, tinkering with movements that are close to violent. He doesn't look up, but Harry knows that George knows he's there. There are a few seconds silence, besides the grinding of Georges screwdriver against a particularly stubborn screw, before he says gruffly, "I'm busy."

Harry sighs. He's come to expect this, and he doesn't waste time when he says slowly, keeping his voice intentionally low, "We went to the grave today. You weren't there."  
  
"I have a business to run." George snaps back, still with his back to Harry, yellow light shining on the crown of his head, making his hair appear fairer than it is. Harry stares at it, and tries to remind himself not to feel stung by the tone. It isn't anything personal, he knows.

Still, the knot in his chest tightens, and he adds gently, "Not last week, you didn't. Easter Holiday, remember? You had the day off."

"Whats your point?" He growls, and twists the screwdriver sharply, his shoulder just shielding whatever it is he's working on from Harrys view.  
  
"You haven't gone any of the times they've invited you. They're worried about you."

"Then tell them to stop inviting me." George hisses, mostly under his breath, and he turns briefly, eyes burning at Harry, and then he swivels back around, shoulders curled like a barrier.

"You don't have to go if you're not ready, but would it hurt to write them back every now and again? Your mother says she hasn't heard from you in over a month." Harry mutters, and he almost hopes he isn't heard. There is more safety in silence, he's learned.

"She knows where I am. I never leave, it's not like we could have missed each other." George tells him, unaffected, and his face is angled just enough that Harry can see the self-depreciating sneer on his face. He wonders if it was meant to be a sarcastic smile.

Harry is quiet for a while, waiting for his breathing to even out before he says gently, "I'm not sure she thinks shes welcome."

George drops his experiment and slams his palm on the table. The crack echoes through the flat. Harry doesn't flinch, and George's back goes rigid as he raises his hand again slowly, bright red from hitting so hard, and he curls it into a fist that shakes as he tries to find his voice.

It's hoarse when he does, and rough with anger as he growls, "Fred is the one that died, and she isn't bothered about visiting him all the time. Figures."

Harry doesn't have the right words to gift him, so he stays silent, watching as the shaking in Georges hand settles and he relaxes his fingers, picking up his experiment again. He works in relative silence for several seconds, and then the screwdriver overturns and what he's working on makes a sound like cheap metal snapping, and he growls, throwing it violently aside. It's small and gold and flashes in the air before clattering against the wall and onto the floor. Harry tries to see what it is, but can't, and George glares at where it's landed with a fire in his eyes thats staring to feel familiar when he growls to himself, "Fucking useless...."

"Are you--"

He's overstayed his welcome. It's evident in the way his posture changes and he tells Harry with a forced formality, his tone tight and demanding, "Do me a favor. Ring the kid up at the register when he's done, and then get out of my hair."

"Sure." Harry says regretfully, because he knows better than to argue by now, "I'll be back next week."

"Or you could take a page out of mums book, and start feeling unwelcome too. I don't need you checking up on me. I'm fine."

Harry pauses in the hallway and says, soft as he can manage with the weight that is crushing his chest, "I'll see you next week."   
  
The boy is gone when Harry gets down there, and he flips the sign in the window to say 'closed' on his way out.

******  
  
His next visit is much shorter. He brings a metal tin with Mollys cookies as a peace offering, but George turns his nose up at them, and tells him to throw them in the bin. Harry moves them onto the table beside the curtain instead, and George glares at him for it, hissing, "I don't want them."

Harry isn't sure how to respond, and says, bewildered, "Your mum asked me to bring them. She says--"

"If I cared what anyone had to say, I'd be reading their letters. I want to be left alone, I thought I'd made it clear." George snaps, aiming to wound with his sharp tone.  
"Tell mum to piss off."

"Your mum lost one child, don't ask her to sacrifice another." Harry says, speaking out of grief, but it's true, and someone has to say it.

he doesn't expect the reaction he gets. It's not one he would have had before. He bursts from his seat like a firework, face instantly red, and without much warning he's roaring at Harry, speaking so fast that flecks of spit come off his mouth, "You think that's what I want? I didn't ask for this! Do you have any idea why I do this; why I shut you all out?! It's because I can't stand the way they look at me, and see him! Every time I talk they're looking at some empty space next to me, waiting for someone else to finish my sentences, and every time they do it I'm stupid enough to hope that he will be there, and he never is! You can tell me that you know what that's like all you want, but you don't! Nobody does, and I can't stand all of them telling me that they understand it; that they know what I'm going through, because they don't!"

He's breathing hard when he finishes, chest heaving, and Harry is almost relieved because its the first real reaction he's seen from him since the war. He speaks automatically when he tells him, "They're your family. They lost Fred too. The entire family is broken up, but they can't be whole with a piece missing."

"Yeah? Neither can I, but Fred isn't coming back for my sake, is he?" George says with a hoarse snarl, and his eyes are wet and hard as they stare at something just past Harrys ear. He's looking at a picture of himself and Fred thats on the wall; they're first day with the shop. The mirror that usually hangs beside it has a grey pillowcase pinned in front of it, and Harry feels sick he hasn't noticed sooner. It explains why Georges hair is so clumsily brushed, and the toothpaste on the side of his mouth. Harry can hardly swallow.   
  
"George--"

He sinks back into his seat, energy and rage leavng him abruptly, He's staring at his hands like he's never seen them, and he says quietly, "Just go. And stop coming back here."

"I'll see you next week" Harry says instead.

*********

George is in his workroom again, and Harry is struck by how pale he is. He asks without meaning to, "When was the last time you left the flat?"  
  
"Don't know." George mumbles, and flicks a knut across his desk top. He seems in a better mood than when Harry last saw him. The pillowcase isn't over the mirror anymore, he notes.

"When did you get groceries last?"

"Owl ordered them." George answers, his voice hard and defensive as he reaches across to retrieve the knut. He spins it with his finger and watches it lose momentum as it swirls across the desk again.

Harry watches a few more turns with the coin, and eventually sighs and moves to approach. George has his project on the other corner of the desk, and claps his hand over it when he notices. Harry hesitates, and stops in the middle of the room where he's standing, asking carefully, "What are you working on?"  
  
"None of your business."

Harry sighs and tells him to put it away so that he can talk to him, urging, "At least make me believe you're a functioning adult and try to hold a conversation."

George eyes him with distrust, but reluctantly slides the hidden object into a drawer and turns to him, giving him his full attention, which is actually unfortunate, because Harry hasn't actually planned what he wants to say to him. Instead, he studies his face a moment, allowing his mind to whir over his features. He's thinner than he's ever been, and so pale he looks ill. The bags beneath his eyes betray how little sleep he's gotten, and Harry notices how long his hair is now. It's practically to his chin. An idea strikes him as he looks at it, and he suggests with all the false confidence and enthusiasm he can muster, "Right, then! Grab your coat, we're going out."

Georges face turns to stone, and he says gruffly, the words trembling as they pass his lips, "No. I'm not going there."

"I'm not taking you there." Harry says, pretending his heart doesn't ache horribly at the fear in Georges eyes, "You're beyond due for a haircut, and you need to get outside for a little while. We won't leave Diagon."

He's true to his word, and George requires surprisingly little fuss and insistence to go along with him. He's nervous, being outside again, but soon relaxes, almost smiling when the barber they settle on tells Harry a crude joke under his breath. He ends up cutting nearly six inches of hair off is head, and Harry is amazed at the result. His face looks brighter without dark red curtains framing it, and it flattens out the sharp angles of his jaw nicely. He looks more like he did before the war happened, and if Harry closes his eyes, he can almost forget about it entirely. It's different than he's ever had it before, a bit longer on the top than he's ever tried, allowing for a bit of a wave where it falls over his forehead, and the sides are kept short and neat. They don't bring up how he hasn't ever had a trim that didn't match Freds. Harry knows he's done it on purpose, but its still easy to mistake him for his brother if one didn't know the difference.

George doesn't want to stay out when he leaves the barber shop, and Harry knows his chest is likely aching at doing what used to be a joint activity on his own. Harry had been there, of course, but it wasn't the same, and they both knew it. Harry didn't know when he'd manage to convince him to come outside the shop again, though, and after a bit of persuasion he convinces George that they ought to at least step into the new Quidditch supply store to look at the new brooms.

They are barely in the store when the door opens up again, and Ginny and Luna walk in, chatting with their arms linked together. Harry feels every muscle in his face freeze, and George notices. He turns to see what Harry has, and he and Ginny see each other at the same moment. They both go perfectly still, eyes locked.

There is silence, until Luna says, mystical voice calming as ever, like waves against the seashore, to George, "You haven't been outside in a while. You've got jimpies all around your feet.'

Ginny steps away from Luna, like she hasn't heard her, and slowly appraoches, as if shes not sure whethwer shes allowed anymore, and George holds his arms out automatically, as if on autopilot, and she throws herself into them, falling into his chest with a great sob. His arms are loose on her back and his eyes are open and wet and terrified, as if he doesn't know what to do with her. Maybe he doesn't. He looks at Harry, a mix of grief and relief, and Harry nods encouragingly, trying to give him a smile and not show how emotional he is, and Ginny says through sniffles, her voice impossibly small, "I miss him too, you know."

Thats all it takes for him to hug her back fiercely, face crumpling and folding into her hair, soft sobs echoing from the pair of them. Luna nudges his arm as the pair reacquaint themselves, and she says with a gentle smile, "Come, now, they should be alone for a bit. They don't need us, we're only spectators."

Harry knows she's right, and backs out the door with her, but tosses over his shoulder quietly as he leaves, "I'll see you next week."

*********

Molly is in his kitchen, and so are Ron and Ginny, when he shows up again. He freezes in the doorway, wondering if he's meant to be there. It's awkward and quiet, and nobody knows how to hold themselves in a way that isn't stiff and unnatural, but finally Molly starts forward and says, with sad, regretful eyes, "You've done something with your hair. I was wondering if you'd cut it."

"Last week." George confirms stiffly. Molly gives him a weak smile and says without looking over at the doorway, "Harry, dear, do come in."

Ron nods at him as he does, and Harry goes to stand beside him. Ron tells him quietly, a sadness in his voice that has seemed permanent lately, "You missed all the tears. Mum was a mess. Has been all week. I was starting to think he left the country, how often we see him."

It's a different sort of visit than he's ever had before. George seems less angry. They talk in hushed voices a while, while Harry stands to the side, and he knows they won't mind if he leaves. He feels he's intruding on something intimate, but feels as though a weight has been lifted. It's his first time really thinking that everything might turn out alright. He knows it will when he's gotten to the curtain and George says over Mollys head to him, his smile soft and grateful, "I'll see you next week."  
  
Harry smiles all the way down the stairs. 

*********

The next time he goes to the shop, George tells him, rather out of place, "I think...I think I want to go today."

"You do?" Harry asks, surprised. "Are you sure? If you're not ready--"

George laughs bitterly and says, "I finally say I'll go and you try to talk me out of it? I've been thinking about it since Mum came over, and you all are right. I'm putting it off because going makes it real, but it's real anyways, isn't it? Whether I go to the grave or not, Fred is still dead. It seems I'm the only one that thinks he might still walk through the door if I wait long enough, but I'm done waiting. I want to go, Harry."

"Do you want me to go with you?" Harry asks, though he thinks he knows the answer.

"I can't go alone. I wouldn't know what to say. Just give me two seconds." George says, and disappears down the hall, leaving Harry standing alone. He hears a drawer open and close, and George comes back, tucking something small into his pocket as he does. He smiles sheepishly, and takes Harrys arm.

They apparate directly into the cemetary, and walk slowly up the row to the headstone, doing what they can to delay the inevitable. When they get to Freds headstone, grey and shiny in the afternoon sunlight, they stand completely silent. It takes several seconds for the weight it bears to sink in, and once it does, George sinks down to his knees, a sob wrenched from his throat, eyes dripping as his fingers grope at the marble, tracing his brothers name. Harry sinks beside him, and lets him have his moment, knowing better than to interrupt. He knows it's okay when George says, with a sniffle and a rueful laugh, "It hurts just as much as I was afraid it might."

Harry doesn't say anything because George isn't talking to him, really, but he slips his hand into Georges and squeezes tightly. They sit like that, hand in hand, both with tears dripping lines across their faces, until George begins to recover his breathing, and shakes his hand loose from Harrys to fish in his pocket for something. What he pulls out is a time turner, small and glinting in the sun. It's been mended carefully, and George holds it in his hand a long moment, admiring his work on the piece. After several seconds, he clears his throat and says to the headstone, "I bought it in Borgin and Burkes, the day after you died. It was broken, but I thought that if I fixed it I could go back and save you. I don't think I really can though. If I saved you, I don't know who else could get hurt. I did my research about time turners when I got it, and I was going to overlook it at first, but... there are consequences for actions taken to save a life. It's and old Wizarding Theory, I think. 'Death counts the numbers owed to him, and collects his debts on time.' You'd probably think it was fascinating. Guess I'll never know."

He pauses for breath and takes a deep sigh, shaky and uncertain as he continues, "I think you're probably happy where you are, and I can live with that, so, I guess what I'm saying is that I don't need this, and I'm going to do better from now on. I'll do what you would have wanted from me." His fingers move in sharp motion downwards, and the metal band of the repaired time turner breaks in two, a smoke that is blue and sparkling spitting from the pieces like from a blown match, and he sets it down and says, soft and at ease, "This isn't goodbye...it's a 'see you later', I guess. Maybe some day I'll be better at visiting; have some real stories to tell you."

Then he stands and says, "Lets go home."

Harry starts to walk out with him, but George stops midway down the row and says over his shoulder to the grave, "Next time I come I'll be with everyone; give you a proper visit. I'll see you next week."

******************

They do go back, all of them together, in clothes that seem too bright to be appropriate for a cemetery. Harry can't believe George is there with them; he's become acquainted with the space his absence usually leaves them with. It's a somber day, as they gather in a circle over Fred's grave marker, and speak through their silence. They stay almost twice as long as they usually do; it is always harder to leave than to show up, Harry has learned, like an invisible string is tethering them to the plot.

They go for ice cream after, probably to make sure they leave things on a good note; that they have conversation and learn to be around each other again. Mostly. Harry thinks that they all want to keep George with them as long as possible, in case he shuts himself up in the shop again. It was not an unusual feeling, trying to savor someones presence out of fear for the worst; they had all felt that during the war, but the war was over and Harry was still terrified that George may vanish and the floor would drop out from under his feet. He couldn't recall when it had happened that George became the only thing that kept him standing.

There's a sadness that swims in Georges eyes even as they talk, and he teases Ginny about her engagement to Luna until she blushes, like they had talked about it for ages and he had never been swallowed whole by the aftermath of the war. Harrys heart clenches unkindly at the reminder; at the way George was carrying on like he hadn't been ripped completely in half only weeks ago.

They walk back to the joke shop together, the November air burning their cheeks. Neither thinks to use a warming charm; there is something reassuring in feeling pain that is purely physical for a change. They don't speak the whole way there, and when George disappears upstairs, ducking behind the curtain with a weak smile, Harry promises with numb lips, "I'll see you next week."

  
*********

He does see George a week later, only, not in the way he had planned. he's drunk, and he's fallen into Harry's coat stand with a glassy look in his eyes. Harry watches as he rights himself, one shoulder hunched up higher than the other and his spine crooked. He looks at Harry with eyes that cut through him, and asks with a slur, "How the Hell are you doing it? How the Hell are you going around carrying the world in your chest, and making them all believe you're okay?"

Now Harry, who always has answers for him, is stuck still. He isn't sure how he never noticed that he isn't okay at all. He's never been further from it. He's been going to work and functioning like any other man would, only he's forgotten to take the horrible weight off of his shoulders, and now that he's reminded of it he can feel it pushing him down almost through the floorboards with how heavy it's gotten. For the first time, he doesn't have an answer, and he blurts with a throat that burns, "I don't know."

Nobody has asked him that before. He's been so busy trying to hold the world together, he realizes with a jolt he's been quietly falling apart, and George has seen straight through him. He had never even realized George was looking, but now he is pinned by eyes that burn like the fire he's kept inside himself for so long. And they stand, silent and staring, and it seems they are radiating their pain through the dimly lit entry hall and into one another. Harry sees Sirius falling through the veil, hears his mother scream and his fathers body hit the floor; sees Colin Creevys face go pale as marble, and sees Fred crumple like tissue paper, and he can't speak.

George can, and tells him, very quietly, "I want to talk about it--not just about my shit, yours too. I want to go to my brothers fucking grave and not pretend I don't want to trade places, because I do, and I know sometimes you feel it too. I don't want us to go on pretending we don't feel these things, because we do, and it's going to kill me, Harry, if I don't say it. I want to talk about it."

They talk well until the night. They work their way through a second bottle of wine, and through their tears they find a way to laugh. They suddenly arent talking about death at all, and are talking about life instead, about how colorful it was before the black suits made rows up and down in the graveyards. They aren't even talking anymore; they're spilling everything they've ever kept inside of themselves into the carpet, and when they're done, and they don't have anything else to say, there is an emptiness pleasantly thrumming in Harrys chest--one he hopes George feels too as he pulls himself off the the living room floor and stumbles out, telling Harry gently, with the first genuine smile he's produced in almost a year, "I'll see you next week."

 

*********

They keep talking, and the hole thats been sitting in both their chests seems to be slowly stitching back together. It's February when George moves in to kiss him, and Harry is stuck standing still in the middle of the joke shop, which has slowly brightened over the months. They've been drowning for ages, desperately trying to keep their heads above water in a world that's prone to flooding, and without a warning Harry feels he's found dry ground after years of swimming against the tide. There is a roaring in his chest that he thought he had quieted back in school, and very suddenly he realizes exactly how in love he has been with George in the quiet of his heart. He feels okay, truly, for the first time, and George pulls back slowly, a bit breathless, and Harry says, their lips practically still touching, "I'll see you next week."

  
*********

They stop seeing each other every week. They share the little flat above the shop, and they talk more than they ever imagined they would about the aches in their souls that used to feel unbearable. It's not all left them, and Harry is not naive enough to think it ever will; he can see it in his own eyes that he's suffered, and the sadness he reads in Georges posture sometimes can't always be chased out of him. But managing it all has never felt so easy; it's a wound they share like they do their bed, and it's there that George turns to him, on the nineteenth of October, and asks Harry earnestly to marry him.

The whisper seems to silence the whole town, because it is all Harry hears, and finds himself telling George that he will, and that he wants to do it soon, now that the media has gotten out of the tailspin the war left it in. He wants it to have every person that's ever been important to them, and he wants it to be as private as their midnight conversations.

George smiles slowly, and asks, "How soon is too soon?"

"I don't know. Enough time to tell everyone, but not enough for the Prophet to find out." He thinks a moment, then looks at George again, and asks him slowly, "See you at the altar in a week?"

George puts his head back and laughs, then says as his arm circles Harrys waist, "I'll see you in a week."

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I actually really like the idea of Harry and George together, for some reason? I used to be ehh about it but now I think it makes a lot of sense and it's a really cute couple pairing.


End file.
